Critics are responding to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has attributed latest important climate occasions and transportation crises to local weather change, a minimum of partially.
On Sunday, Buttigieg was featured on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” the place he claimed the results of local weather change are responsible for latest incidents of extreme turbulence on airplanes and excessive climate.
Anchor Margaret Brennan requested Buttigieg about strains on the nationwide transportation system when unhealthy climate compounds a heavy journey weekend like Memorial Day and what he thinks of NOAA’s newest outlook predicting a extra extreme hurricane season this yr.
“The truth is, the results of local weather change are already upon us when it comes to our transportation,” Buttigieg replied.
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“We have seen that within the type of all the pieces from warmth waves that should not statistically even be attainable threatening to soften the cables of transit methods within the Pacific Northwest to … hurricane seasons changing into an increasing number of excessive and indications that turbulence is up by about 15%.
“Which means assessing something and all the pieces that we will do about it.”
In response, GOP lawmakers and a few local weather analysts rejected Buttigieg’s invocation of local weather change, with one legislator claiming climate and public transit methods are being politicized.
“Clearly, Secretary Buttigieg just isn’t critical about addressing our quite a few transportation challenges. He’s enjoying id politics to the detriment of the American folks,” mentioned Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., a member of the Home Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
“Buttigieg’s newest feedback are contradicted by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board and simply one other instance of how out of contact he’s with hardworking People.”
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Vitality analyst Alex Epstein, a former Cato Institute scholar and the creator of “Fossil Future,” advised Fox Information Digital the secretary can be wrongly attributing latest crises to local weather change.
“Local weather itself just isn’t meaningfully affecting transportation, however horrible local weather coverage, together with that of Pete Buttigieg,” Epstein mentioned.
“For instance, the EPA’s new air pollution requirements represent a de facto EV mandate that may drive People to drive inferior automobiles and place large new demand for dependable electrical energy on an already failing grid.”
One other local weather knowledgeable pointed to the rise in general airline flights as a motive for the priority.
“One motive that extra turbulence is recorded is that there are extra flights,” mentioned Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the director of the Heritage Basis Middle for Vitality, Local weather and the Atmosphere.
“Even when the US stopped utilizing all fossil fuels proper now, it might solely make a distinction of two/10 of 1 diploma centigrade by the yr 2100, authorities fashions present. There is not any approach that these modifications may be attributed to local weather change. The local weather is altering on a regular basis, however there is no motive that these modifications may be attributed to the usage of greenhouse gases.”
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Furchtgott-Roth additionally attributed the prevalence of social media and connectivity on planes to folks with the ability to report in-flight points virtually immediately.
Nonetheless, the Division of Transportation pushed again on critics and pointed Fox Information Digital to a 2019 examine in Nature journal that mentioned connections between local weather change and airline turbulence.
A consultant for the division cited the examine’s co-author, College of Studying atmospheric science professor Paul Williams, as saying examine organizers had accrued a big physique of scientific proof now that turbulence is rising due to local weather change.”
“An invisible type referred to as clear-air turbulence is generated by wind shear, which, due to local weather change, is now 15% stronger than within the Seventies. We anticipate an extra strengthening of the wind shear within the coming a long time, maybe doubling or tripling the quantity of extreme turbulence,” Williams wrote.
Requests for remark from the Home Transportation Committee’s high Republican, Sam Graves of Missouri, and high Democrat, Rick Larsen of Washington, weren’t returned.
Calls positioned to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, weren’t returned at press time.
